Here is our third weekly roundup of new vehicle mods for GTA IV, now moved to a Monday so I can include weekend releases here, though it's possible we'll do these updates twice a week from now on, of course depending on the number of releases we have to post.Before I link to the new mods, a bit of news from the modelling community, in particular Zmodeler again. If you've been using mods you'll have noticed damage is not the same as on the default cars in the game. However, Oleg recently released an update for his ZModeler2 WFT export filter. The update allows the creation of proper mesh deformation using specific shader names, and the majority of these new mods have been created since then, and thus have proper damage.

For those who don't care and just want to get the mods, take a look at these:

Rockstar Games have announced that The Ballad of Gay Tony will be released on October 29, 2009. The game will be available for purchase by itself or as part of GTA: Episodes from Liberty City, which contains both The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

The official site has also been updated with the first official desktop wallpaper featuring some nice character art. Gracie Ancelotti is the girl you're looking at, she's the girl Niko kidnaps during the mission "I'll Take Her".

Also, in case you were wondering, Episodes from Liberty City does have it's own official site.

Recent developments in the Zmodeler community have led to the release of a WFT Exporter, meaning that modders can now export their models in a format that can be used within GTA IV. This almost immediately led to the creation of some simple vehicle modifications, convertible versions of cars etc. and we're now also seeing conversions from other games such as NFS:MW and Juiced 2 to name a couple, in addition of course to custom made models.

Since this has all happened over the past week or so, I figured this weekend would be a good time to add them all to our database and to announce them here. Below is a list (not exhaustive) of a whole bunch of mods we've added, hopefully some will be of interest to you. If you perhaps have stopped playing IV for a while, why not pick it up again and add some new cars to it?Browse our bike and car mods, or take your pick from these 30 recently added ones below.

Remember you'll need a tool such as SparkIV or OpenIV to modify your game. Since GTAForums is currently down we've provided a mirror of SparkIV, version 0.6.2, which has been fixed by gamerzworld to work with the latest patch.

While we're on the subject of downloads, I'd also like to say that I'm planning on making a few improvements to the way our database works and looks soon. I've already search engine optimised most links, but that doesn't really concern you. In terms of the front end, we should have a better ratings system done soon, fancy AJAX and everything. You'll be able to hover over stars and click, rather than having to choose from a dropdown box.

I have a few other ideas in mind, but if you have any suggestions for us please leave them in the comments so I can read over them and maybe add any that I think would be useful.

Rockstar have just announced a new contest over at the Social Club. The contest, sponsored by Logitech, asks users to:

Use any of the 98 songs available via the Grand Theft Auto IV PC Video Editor to craft your own original music video shot on location in Liberty City. Best Director wins a one-of-a-kind custom Rockstar branded set of Logitech PC peripherals including high end computer speakers, keyboard & much more.

To enter, you'll need to upload your video anytime between 7/10/09 and 7/31/09 inclusive - and make sure to use the tag "music-video-contest". Go to the Social Club Jams Contest channel page at Rockstar Social Club TV to watch video entries as they start flowing in, and visit the Social Club Jams Contest events page for official rules.